Field
The present disclosure relates generally to an image processing apparatus, which receives a broadcast signal or the like content signal from the exterior and processes it to be displayed as an image, and a control method thereof, and for example to an image processing apparatus, which has a structure for minimizing and/or reducing a time delay taken until a switched channel image is displayed in response to a user's channel switching instruction while processing a content signal including a plurality of content channels, and a control method thereof.
Description of Related Art
To compute and process predetermined information in accordance with certain processes, an electronic apparatus basically includes a central processing unit (CPU), a chipset, a memory, and the like electronic components for computation. Such an electronic apparatus may be classified variously in accordance with what information will be processed therein. For example, the electronic apparatus is classified into an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, a server or the like for processing general information, and an image processing apparatus for processing image information.
The image processing apparatus receives a content signal including video data from the exterior and processes the video data extracted from the content signal in accordance with various image processing processes. The image processing apparatus may display an image based on the processed video data on its own display panel, or output the processed video data to another display apparatus provided with a panel so that on the corresponding display apparatus can display an image based on the processed image signal. As a representative of the image processing apparatus that has no display panel, there is a set-top box. The image processing apparatus that has a display panel is called a display apparatus, and may for example includes a TV, a monitor, a portable multimedia player (PMP), a tablet computer, a mobile phone, etc.
The image processing apparatus may receive a content signal from various image sources by various methods. For example, the content signal received in the image processing apparatus may be a radio frequency (RF) signal transmitted from a transmitter of a broadcasting station, or packet data transmitted from a server via the Internet. The image processing apparatus is tuned to a frequency of a channel designated by a user with regard to the content signal received as above, and extracts and processes video data from the tuned content signal, thereby displaying a content image of the channel designated by the user. During such tuning and processing procedures, system resources in the display apparatus are selectively assigned and distributed with respect to a central processing unit (CPU).
In addition, there is a predetermined time interval between time of giving an instruction on a channel switch and time of displaying a switched-channel image, and therefore the image processing apparatus displays the switched-channel image after a delay of a predetermined time from the moment when a user gives the instruction to switch over to a specific channel. Such a time delay is varied depending on many factors such as the structure of the image processing apparatus, characteristics of a content signal, communication environments for transmitting a signal, etc. For example, it takes about 1.0 to 1.8 seconds to switch a digital television (DTV) channel based on a compression format of a moving picture experts group (MPEG). Like this, the image processing apparatus cannot display a switched-channel image during the delayed time, and it is thus important to shorten the time taken in displaying the switched-channel image in light of giving a user less inconvenience.